


One Safe Harbor

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag for 4x10. Just a quiet little moment with Neal and Peter, after the episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Safe Harbor

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Безопасная гавань](https://archiveofourown.org/works/607888) by [aqwt101](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aqwt101/pseuds/aqwt101)



After dropping the bombshell about Sam on Neal, Peter made himself take off. There was a big part of him that wanted to head straight over to Neal's place. It was the same part that had gone after Neal in the islands ... the same part that had investigated Sam, even over Neal's vehement objections. The part that needed to stand between Neal and anything out there in the world that wanted to hurt him.

But, damn it, there was nothing he could do at this point except get in the way. And whatever went on between Neal and Sam -- between Neal and James -- wasn't his business anyway. It was time to prove that he could learn from his mistakes, and give Neal the space to work things out on his own. If Neal wanted Peter involved, he'd say so.

Not that this stopped him from stopping several times on the drive home to check Neal's tracking data. Always the same: at June's.

El took one look at his face and pushed a beer into his hands. "You found out something, didn't you," she said, looking at him with sympathetic eyes.

"I did." He hesitated for a moment about telling her. But Diana already knew. Other people would know eventually. El should hear it from him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked him quietly when he'd finished.

"Be there if he wants to talk about it, I guess."

"That's it?" El said, studying him quizzically.

"What else can I do? I don't trust Sam any farther than I can throw him ... Sam, James, whoever he is." Peter picked at the label on his beer bottle. "But, assuming the DNA results are accurate, he's Neal's flesh and blood. Possibly the only family Neal has left. I'm not going to back off completely -- I can't, El, I just can't. But I'm also not going to risk blowing up Neal's chance to have a relationship with his father. That's not something I think he could ever forgive. And he shouldn't."

 

***

 

The soft knock at the door came later, after El was in bed. Peter wasn't sure what had made him stay up. Maybe it was his gut. Maybe it was just that he couldn't sleep; his head kept whirling around and around on the whole Sam Phelps/James Bennett thing. The house was utterly quiet but for the soft hum of the refrigerator and an occasional car passing outside. Satchmo slept beside the couch, twitching in doggie dreams. Peter had all of the files dealing with Sam and James and Ellen -- everything he'd been able to get without raising flags, anyway -- spread in front of him on the coffee table. The files blurred, and he rubbed his tired eyes, then raised his head and listened.

The soft knock came again. Peter rose and approached the door. Longstanding habit had him checking the location of his gun and then peeking out the door, but it was, as he'd halfway expected, Neal.

Neal gave a half-apologetic little shrug -- _Sorry for turning up so late, couldn't help it._ Peter stepped back to let him in. After two years, it was a well-rehearsed dance between the two of them. And if there seemed to be the slightest uncharacteristic hesitation before Neal came in ... well, it probably wasn't his imagination, but Neal was here and Peter knew he'd have to be content with that.

"El's in bed?" Neal asked softly.

"Yeah, and I'll be there soon. You just caught me."

"I know it's late," Neal said. He glanced past Peter's shoulder at the files spread out on the table. "Is that, uh --"

"Yeah," Peter said, and went into the kitchen. It was late to keep drinking when they both had to be up for work in the morning, but he threw caution to the winds, poured a glass of wine for Neal and got a beer for himself.

When he came back into the living room, Neal was leaning on the fireplace and reading the contents of James's folder. He took the glass of wine that Peter offered him and then followed Peter to the couch, bringing the folder with him.

"So," Peter said, and then stopped, forcibly checking himself. If Neal wanted to talk about it, he'd talk about it. If not, Peter wasn't going to push him, not even by asking. _Space. Give him space, goddammit. You're not his mom, and he's not a kid._

The faintest hint of a smile quirked the corner of Neal's mouth. "I know what you're doing."

"Oh?" Peter said, going for innocent.

"You're dying to know how it went tonight with Sam." Neal hesitated. "James, I mean. You don't have to completely -- I suppose --"

"Stop interfering?" 

Neal shrugged, and Peter gave up on being circumspect. "You can teach an old dog new tricks, you know. Sometimes. At least I hope so."

Neal snorted. "In answer to the question you're not asking -- very loudly, I might add -- things were kind of awkward, and then he left. We talked around the big issues rather than about them."

Peter offered the first thing that came to mind, only realizing what a platitude it was when the words left his mouth. "Well, you've got time."

"That's what I thought about Ellen, too." Neal looked down into his glass of wine. "I was eighteen when I left home, Peter. The next time I saw Ellen was -- well, you know when it was. That was my choice; I could've gone back anytime. But in the end, we only had a few weeks together. I don't want to be looking back on this night, ten years from now, and thinking, 'If only I'd spent more time with my dad while I could.'"

It was startling to see Neal so open, so vulnerable. And Peter found himself thinking, _I'm not the only dog who's learning new tricks. Not the only one who's trying to bend a little._

Neal had come here. And it said a lot that he had. Peter knew that what he said now would _matter_ , which of course made it impossible to say anything. He didn't have any advice to offer. He'd always had a great relationship with his dad. He could acknowledge that there were some situations about which he didn't even have a right to have an opinion, and this was one of those, full stop.

_Just let him talk to you. That's why he's here, after all._

"So what are you ... feeling, about James?" he tried, only to have Neal look up with stifled mirth sparkling in his eyes.

"Don't quit your day job, Peter. Psychiatry is not one of your strengths."

"So sue me," Peter retorted, feeling some of the tension let go as he relaxed out from under the mantle of "sympathetic, non-judgmental listener" that he'd been trying very hard to wear. "I'm terrible at this and you know it."

"No you aren't," Neal said, suddenly very serious and direct in that disconcerting way he sometimes had. "I want to know what you think."

"About ..."

"About James," Neal said. "About what I should do now. _Yes,_ Peter," he said, rolling his eyes as Peter continued to stare at him. "I want your advice. I came here for your advice."

"You. Want to know what _I_ think you should do."

"It happens more often than you'd think," Neal said, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

Peter was acutely conscious that they were flirting around the jagged edges of the rift in their relationship that was only starting to be patched over. It was still very much there -- the hurt, the wariness. But there was also this: the beer and the night and the unconscious, easy comfort that they couldn't seem to _not_ feel in each other's presence, even back in the very beginning, when they had been, technically, enemies.

He knew he was out of his depth here. Navigating dysfunctional family relationships ... he didn't have any experience at it, and he felt like a bull in a china shop, blundering around and threatening to make things worse at every turn. He didn't want to give Neal the one piece of advice that was going to make Neal's gloomy ten-years-from-now prophesy come true, the wrong words that were going to point Neal towards the wrong decision (whatever the wrong decision was).

He wasn't good at words.

But he was, he realized, good at being honest. And Neal was still looking at him, silent and serious. _He wants to hear what you think. He just said so. Tell him, then._ Neal could have asked anybody. People with actual, applicable experience. He could've asked June, Mozzie, Diana. He wanted to know what Peter thought. So it was only fair to tell him.

"I think you're right about not wanting regrets," Peter said, feeling his way slowly to the truth that he could feel lurking in the conversation. "You have to live your life so that you can look back and _know_ that you did your best, that there was nothing else you could have done that you didn't do. You have to know that, no matter what anyone else does, you did what you felt was right."

"But I don't _know_ what's right. That's the problem." It came out almost plaintive. Somewhere under Neal's urbane exterior, Peter thought, there lurked an abandoned child, trying to fight his way through pain and anger directed towards the father that he believed, fairly or unfairly, had abandoned him. 

He was lost and groping for answers. And answers were what he'd come to Peter for. Consciously or unconsciously, he thought that Peter had them. After all the times that Peter had tried to tell Neal what to do, only to have Neal do the exact opposite ... here he was, sitting on Peter's couch with a mostly-empty wine glass, _asking_ to be given instructions.

Which was exactly why Peter couldn't. He chose his words carefully.

"I don't know what's right either," he said. "I really don't. I don't trust James, Neal. I didn't trust him when I thought he was Sam, and I don't trust him any more now. But he's your father, and you only get issued one of those. This would be pretty straightforward, and I'd be giving you completely different advice, if he'd, I don't know --"

"Abused me, or something?" Neal filled in when Peter hesitated. "Which he hasn't in any meaningful sense. Yeah, I know. In a way, I almost wish that he -- well, no, _obviously_ I don't wish that, but do you know what I mean? It would be so much easier if he were some kind of cast-iron bastard that I could just shut out of my life."

"He's human," Peter said. "Flawed. Like everybody. He's made mistakes." He smiled a little, extending the proverbial olive branch: "We all have."

"And not everything that seems like a mistake at the time actually is one," Neal said -- an olive branch of his own, offered in return. "He had reasons for what he did. I know that. I'm just not sure I'll like his reasons when I find out what they were."

"But you'll never know if you shut him out."

"No. I'll never know." Neal's head dipped towards the couch: sleepy, or avoiding eye contact. "But if I -- if he turns out to be --"

"It hurts to put your heart out there," Peter said. God, did he ever know the truth of that. "Doesn't mean you shouldn't."

Neal opened his eyes and smiled a slow, sleepy smile. "Easy for you to say," he said, but there was more fondness than criticism. "It's late, Peter. I need to let you get upstairs to your wife."

The couch was definitely feeling awfully comfortable. Peter was pretty sure his body had molded itself to the shape of the cushions. "Yeah, that'd be good." Neal started to rise, and Peter caught his arm, tugging him back down. "Hold on. We have a spare bedroom. Bed's all made up and everything."

"I think I need to walk," Neal said. "Clear my head."

Peter nodded, and let him go. There was a part of him that wanted to tell Neal not to go confront James yet. Not to do anything stupid. He stomped on it. What Neal got up to as his CI was and would continue to be his business -- he was legally responsible for it. This? No. As long as Neal managed to keep himself out of jail tonight and didn't break any laws, there wasn't a single thing Peter could give him orders about. Not right now. Not while the ground was still tentative under their feet as thin, fresh-frozen ice.

Instead, he said, "If your walk doesn't end up being a long one, there's a key in the left-hand flowerpot on the front step. Just don't wake me up."

Something in Neal's face went soft and a little surprised. "Don't worry. I know what you're like when you haven't gotten your eight hours."

"Usually because of you," Peter said, pointedly.

Neal laughed. "I guess I'll see you in the morning. At work, I mean."

"I can probably talk El into making her famous pancakes. Don't let that influence your decision one way or another."

"Aha, I get it," Neal said. "You want me to spend the night so you can have pancakes."

Peter shrugged. "You caught me."

This got another small laugh. "See you in the morning, Peter," Neal said, gently but firmly. He turned towards the door; then turned back, suddenly awkward, and reached out to lightly touch Peter's arm.

Then he was gone, into the night.

Peter ran a hand through his hair. "Never gets easier," he muttered. Although in some ways, it did. And in others it got harder. It balanced out. Mostly.

He dragged himself upstairs, but even as exhausted as he was, he ended up lying awake, listening to El breathing quietly in the dark. More than once, he had to stop himself from getting up to check Neal's tracking data.

 _It will be what it will be,_ he told himself, _and it's not any of your business anyway._

He wasn't sure how much time passed before Satchmo rose suddenly from his place beside the bed and trotted downstairs, toenails clicking. Peter sat up and listened until he heard a door open softly, and close just as softly. A voice said a few quiet words to Satchmo; Peter recognized the cadence of it, even without being able to hear the words. Then all was quiet again, and he lay back down and pressed closer to El, trying not to smile and, probably, failing.

"Looks like you're making pancakes in the morning, hon," he whispered into her sweet-smelling hair.

Then, and only then, he slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Neal's line about wasted time is the concept that this whole fic coalesced around. I was thinking about how devastating it must have been to spend some fifteen years separated (voluntarily) from his surrogate mother, and then lose her only a few weeks after getting to know her again. And now he has another long-lost relative walking back into his life ... Regardless of how Peter feels about the James situation, it made sense to me that Neal would be reflecting on the whole issue of lost time and not wanting to have the same regrets about James that he certainly has about Ellen.


End file.
